Christos Papakostas will be joining us from Ioannina, Greece and will be teaching dances from the villages of Pogoni, Epirus. He is a judge at both the Hellenic Dance Festival (HDF) and Folk Dance Festival (FDF).

Bio

Christos Papakostas is an Associate Professor in the Department of Primary Education at the University of Ioannina, specializing in Folklore and Greek Traditional Dance. From 2014 to 2021, he served as an Assistant Professor on the Faculty of Physical Education and Sports Science of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, where he taught Greek Traditional Dance.

He studied at the Department of Physical Education and Sports Science at Democritus University of Thrace, where he specialized in Greek Traditional Dance. In addition to his academic career, he has worked as a professional dance teacher with various dance groups and at seminars across Europe, the U.S., and Canada. He has taught traditional percussion at the Music Schools of Drama, Karditsa, and Trikala. Christos has served as a judge at the Metropolis of Atlanta’s Hellenic Dance Festival and the Metropolis of San Francisco’s Folk Dance Festival.

Papakostas received his PhD from the Department of History, Archaeology, and Social Anthropology at the University of Thessaly. He has taught courses in anthropology, folklore, and the anthropology of dance and music at several Greek universities, including the University of Thessaly, the University of Ioannina, the University of Western Greece, the Hellenic Open University, and the Technological Educational Institute of Epirus.

His research focuses on dance anthropology, music, folklore, and cultural identity. He co-edited Ethnochoreographies (with Rena Loutzaki, 2022, Disigma Publications) and Dancing Cultures: Globalization, Tourism and Identity in the Anthropology of Dance (with Nikos Poulakis, 2019).

In 2014, his first monograph, Saha isi baro ni nai: Roma Dance and Musical Identities in Northern Greece, was published. His additional publications include, among others, the following articles:

• “Dancescapes of Dionysos: Local (Ethnic) and National Identities and the Olympics — A Case Study from Northern Greece,” in Anthony Shay (ed.), Dance and Ethnicity (Oxford University Press, forthcoming).

• “Folk Narratives, Identity and Resistance: A Case Study,” in Narratives across Space and Time: Transmission and Adaptation (Vol. III), Proceedings of the International Conference of the International Society for Folk Narratives and the Hellenic Folklore Research Center of the Academy of Athens, 2014.

• “Repertoire: Theory vs. Practice — The Greek Paradigm,” in Rethinking Theory and Practice, Proceedings of the International Symposium on Dance Research (Centre National de la Danse, Congress on Research in Dance, Society of Dance History Scholars), 2008.

• “Maître et Serviteurs: Espaces Émotionnels et Spectacles Musicaux dans la Grèce du Nord,” Revue Études Tsiganes, 44–45 (2012).

• “Dance and Place: The Case of a Roma Community in Northern Greece,” in Anthony Shay (ed.), Balkan Dance: Essays on Characteristics, Performance and Teaching (McFarland Publishers, 2008).